Submissions are open for this year’s Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry, a unique prize with no entry fee that champions “outstanding poets from the upper Midwest and brings their work to a national stage.” Administered by Milkweed Editions, the prize offers $10,000 and publication for a collection by a poet currently residing in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, or Wisconsin.

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Using only the online submission system [1], submit a poetry manuscript of at least 48 pages by February 15. There is no entry fee. Tyehimba Jess will judge. The winner and finalists will be announced in April. Visit the website for complete guidelines [2].

Founded in 1980, Milkweed Editions is a nonprofit independent press of literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry based in Minneapolis. The Ballard Spahr Prize is one of several awards offered by the press, including the Jake Adam York Poetry Prize [3], which is presented in partnership with Copper Nickel, and the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize [4]. Recent books published as winners of the Ballard Spahr Prize include Return Flight by Jennifer Huang and Wound From the Mouth of a Wound by torrin a. greathouse; greathouse was featured in the sixteenth annual look at debut poets [5] from Poets & Writers Magazine.